40 weeks

I saw someone else post when their child hit 40 weeks, and loved the idea. I'm very behind in doing Sam's 40 week post, but better late than never. I wrote a similar post for Josh [link] and reflected on my thoughts from pregnancy through Josh's first 40 weeks, and I wanted to do the same for Sam.

Babies grow from a ball of cells to a living, breathing, moving baby in 40 weeks of pregnancy. In their first 40 weeks on the outside, babies must learn to eat, sleep, roll, crawl and experience the world. 40 weeks for Sam was the end of January, and he was just past 9 months old. He is a very physical baby, crawling and pulling up as often as possible. He loves being held and looking around. He is such a happy easy going baby, and very playful. Josh's personality has pretty much stayed the same from the get-go, but it has been great to see how it manifests as he gets older. I'm excited to see how Sam is as a toddler, considering how easy going he is as a baby.

I think one of my big fears this time around was how would I love another baby as much as I love Josh, and how would being a parent the second time be as exciting as it was the first time. Man I was totally wrong on both fronts. I sort of knew that it was common to wonder how you would be able to have space in your heart for two kids, and the practical side of me knew that I would have no problems. I fell completely in love with Sam from the get-go, and now can't picture our family without him. I also have been just as excited by the little tiny milestones this time as I was with Josh. Sam and Josh are so different, so while each milestone is similar, they both approach them differently. Plus you sort of start all over, and forget some of the milestones, so they are just as exciting :-P

Pregnancy was overall much harder the second time for me, particularly with all the illness and injury. I had really hoped that recovery from delivery would be quicker, and that I would lose the weight quicker. Sadly I was wrong. I re-injured my tailbone during delivery, darn 9+lb baby, and it is only just starting to finally feel better. It still hurts if I sit the wrong way too long, or on a particularly hard chair for too long. I'm also still struggling to lose the baby weight. I gained less weight this pregnancy (and more of the weight was Sam!) so I thought it would come off faster. By the time Josh was 9 months I was almost 10lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight, which is certainly not the case since having Sam. While I have been exercising, I have intentionally not watched what I'm eating while breastfeeding. Hopefully the weight will keep coming off slowly, otherwise I will wait until I'm done breastfeeding to get serious about it.

Overall, I have LOVED being a second time Mom. The first time was really hard for me, I had a really hard time adjusting my expectations and Josh was not an easy baby. This time I have so much more confidence, and I have been able to let go of things that would have bothered me with Josh. A friend who also just had their second said that the second time around you know that if you manage to shower and keep the kid alive, it has been a good day. I completely agree with that! I no longer have an unrealistic expectations of all the things I can get done, and I'm happy to just "be" with Sam. I really enjoyed my maternity leave with Sam, and I've been enjoying working 3 days a week and having a little extra time with him. It is rare to get so much one on one time with your second child, and I feel so lucky to have gotten the opportunity :-)  I also think because I get extra time with Sam during the week, I don't feel guilty prioritizing Josh on the weekends.

In the past 40 weeks I have also changed a lot, I've learned to face challenges and be creative in ways to care for two kids. I'm not totally sure I understand why, but I feel like a better Mom to two kids, than I was to one kid. I still loose my cool sometimes, or have a bad parenting day. I've been struggling to make time for some of my favorite hobbies, and to make time to see friends. For now I'm ok overall with the way things are, and I'm sure that I will start adding things back to my schedule at some point.

I'm not ready to admit that Sam is almost one, I want him to stay my baby forever :-)

Almost 40 weeks on the inside!

40 Weeks on the outside!

40 weeks on the outside!

Year in review

I started this post back around New Years, and I've decided to finally finish it and post it. Even if we are a bit late, I love looking back at old posts to remember what we were up to and how I was feeling about everything.

As 2015 comes to a close, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the year. As our life has gotten much more busy, we have less time to post here and even less time to post our general reflections instead of just events that are happening. It has been a very challenging, although also rewarding year.

Obviously the big news of the year was Sam's speedy arrival, and our family of three becoming four. So far we are loving being a family of four, and Sam has fit right into our lifestyle. All of my cousins were right though, after the first kid you can still pretend you have a life....but once you have two, your kids are your life. I'm not sure we would want it any other way though :-)  We have really been enjoying doing fun kid friendly things most of the time. We have lost any desire to go out to eat someplace with kids where you can't throw food on the floor, because it is just too stressful. We like to prioritize having both kids nap in the afternoon so that we can get things done, so we tend to keep our weekends low key. I hope in the next year we will get out a bit more for date nights, particularly now that Josh has been better about being left with someone.

Before Sam's arrival, we spent a lot of time fixing up the house to get ready. It has been great this winter that we have new windows, because they really keep the house much warmer. We have also loved having Josh on the main floor. I would still consider having the boys share a room once they are on the same nap schedule, so that we could get a bit of extra space on the main floor--but for now it works well to have them separate. We have a few things on our to-do list for this year, the big one being to redo our front walkway and steps. We have some drywall repair to do, and I would love to do some painting. But we have been having a hard time finding the motivation to get started on something big.

We managed to do a few fun trips this year. Atlanta before Sam was born, then the beach, Lancaster, PA and Nashville over the summer, Landsdale PA for my cousin's Bat Mitzvah, then Florida for Christmas. Traveling as a family of 4 requires much more careful packing and planning, since we have to be able to manage all our stuff. This year we are planning a trip with extended family to Costa Rica, which will be the first trip out of the country for boy boys. We have been thinking about a few other trips, but nothing planned yet. Both Julian and I wanted to get through the winter to see how much vacation time we would need for sick/snow days before planning much.

In a bit of sad news, this year we lost our cat Jeter. Julian's family rescued her as a kitten 19 years ago (we think), and she has been living with him since he graduated college. She was my first ever cat, and she was a good one! We took many many naps together :-) She had a rough last month health wise, so her death was not unexpected. I started a post about this, but never finished it-hopefully this will be a reminder to find the post.

2016 has already been very busy, and filled with snow :-)  We are excited to see Sam growing into a toddler (ahhhhhhh) and Josh growing into a preschooler. He has learned so much in the past year, and while the millions of questions gets annoying sometimes.....we love how much he is understanding and learning.

Off to Florida 1/1/15

Happy 2nd Bday Josh!

Pregnant!

Welcome Sam! 4/25/15

awww <3

Brothers!

Family fun!

Florida 12/28/15....Can't wait to see what the next year brings!

Stats for both kids!

Well we have been so slow to post, that we are going to combine Josh's 3 year stats and Sam's 9 months stats.

Josh weighed in at 33.6lbs, 70th percentile and was 38.35 inches tall, 71st percentile. Pretty much what we expected. We were a bit surprised that at 3 years old the pediatrician wanted him to pee in a cup. This was a particularly unpleasant experience for all of us. Overall Josh is doing very well. He was being a bit difficult at the appointment, which did not go unnoticed. We talked a bit about consistency for discipline and such with the pediatrician, so we are working on making sure we stick to that. We figured out that Josh was being particularly difficult that week because we had him doubled up on nebulizer drugs, as soon as we stopped over the weekend he was in a much better mood. Julian and I are also working on recognizing what behaviors Josh can control, and what he can't--particularly since we know there are side effects to the asthma meds he is on.

We have been so impressed with Josh's cognitive reasoning lately. He has gotten very sophisticated in his thought processes, and can remember complicated details. He has learned all his letters and numbers and can spell his name. He can write JO_H, but still has some trouble with the S. He can write many of the other letters too, but Josh is the most important :-)  These days he loves playing outside, arts and crafts, emergency vehicles, any vehicles, animals, and cooking. He also loves reading books. He can mostly dress himself, although it is faster and more accurate to help him.

Sam is 19lbs 12.5oz 52nd percentile, 29.25 inches long, 84th percentile. 71st percentile for head circumference, which is not something I cared about until all this talk about microcephaly.  Tall and thin, which is pretty much something we expected as well. He loves solid food these days, and has gotten more picky about refusing a bottle. He won't take a bottle from anyone at home, and we hear he is picky at daycare about which teachers he will take a bottle from. I've been working on him taking a sippy cup, and since he will eat plenty of solid food, we don't think it will be a big problem.

Sam crawls very fast, and pulls up on everything. He is cruising along furniture these days, and I've caught him standing for a second without holding onto anything before sitting down. He has started saying consonant sounds, Bababa and Lalala. I think I've heard others, but not consistently enough to call them. We are still waiting on Dada and Mama. He tends to be quiet when Josh is around, and will be more chatty one on one. Perhaps he is more like his Daddy :-)  He also has very good hand eye coordination already, he can eat peas and other small foods by himself with great accuracy. He is very smiley and happy :-)

His sleeping lately has left much to be desired. He has regressed a bit and is waking up about 50% of the time. He has been getting teeth and was sick, so he had some excuses, but pretty soon we might need to start doing a bit of CIO. Hopefully it won't come to that. His bedtime is around 6:45-7,  and his napping has been relatively good lately. He takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap. As long as I don't run any long errands, they will each be about 45-90 minutes--usually one longer and one shorter. If I run errands and he falls asleep in the car, then his naps get thrown off for the day.

Both boys have been mostly getting along well. They always want to play with the same toy. As Sam has gotten more and more mobile, he likes to steal Josh's toys, or eat them, or knock them over. I understand how Josh feels, because Sam also likes to steal my phone and my diet coke. We mostly try to give Sam a different toy to play with, but then inevitably, Josh wants the toy we just gave Sam and steals it. Josh has been dealing with a bit more jealously lately, as he gets older and more capable of those feelings. We try to make sure to do something with Josh during Sam's morning nap, so that he gets some quality time with us. We've been trying to talk very openly with him about his feelings, so that he at least understands that it is ok to be upset, and then help him understand that he gets special time with Mommy and Daddy too. But overall Josh just loves Sam, and Sam thinks Josh is the best. Josh loves to help feed Sam and make him laugh. He is looking forward to being able to play with Sam, although I think it will be longer than he would like. Sam LOVES watching whatever Josh is doing, and just smiles at him all the time. We hope they will be good friends :-)

And for the most important....cute pictures :-)

Getting ready to play in the snow

Obligatory check up picture

This way Sam!

Quick get a picture before he moves the blocks!

Little bear is having a wonderful time

Snow selfie!

Deep snow!

Chasing after Sam

Getting ready for a bath

It's hard to always look your best!

Driving in style

Fun in the snow while Sam naps

Potty Training

In general we try not to post anything on the blog that would greatly embarrass either boy.  We'll see what Josh and Sam have to say about that when they eventually find it.  So with that in mind I'll try to keep this a PG rated version of potty training.  We have decided that Josh is officially potty trained.  That doesn't mean we are done with diapers and we are a long ways away from that point but Josh spent the past two long weekends entirely in underwear (8 out of 11 days).  We are still doing nap time and bed time in diapers but even when we went out, Josh was in underwear and he did a great job!

We started potty training over the summer which was a bit later than we wanted.  We didn't want to do it when Sam was born or when he had a new teacher so we delayed it a bit and we think that made it more difficult because Josh became more afraid of new things.  We gradually got him to use the potty more and more and after a few months he had no trouble doing it but he didn't want to wear underwear.  He was initially excited about it, but then realized it was scary and refused.

There are many tough parts of parenting but so far Julian is putting potty training as his least favorite part.  After several miserable weekends of trying to force Josh to wear underwear, we decided to take a break.  Everyone said not to force it and take a break.  Unfortunately we didn't see any signs of change.  When asked Josh always refused to wear underwear.  He would occasionally use the potty but we didn't force it on him.  With the new year we tried again and after an hour of arguing got him into underwear.  Then we tried something we had never done before - we left the house!  This was a breakthrough moment for us.  Our outing was not a complete success but Josh overall was more confident in wearing underwear.  We realized that it was likely sending a mixed message that he had to change into a diaper to go out.

The next weekend we had to fight a bit to get him into underwear, but he didn't want to take them off once he was wearing them. So we did more outings in underwear. We also got the great tip to stop making him sit on the potty every X minutes. Then before the MLK weekend, he said he wanted to wear underwear on the weekend and when the time came he didn't argue at all. Since then he has worn underwear anytime is he at home or with us.

Our work is not done - he refuses to wear underwear to or use the bathroom at daycare so we have to work on that.  We aren't really sure how to approach this one, tips are welcome. The pediatrician said to let peer pressure work, but there are only a few kids that are 3 in his class, and only 1-2 are not in diapers. He is a pretty stubborn kid, so we aren't sure he will randomly decide to wear underwear to daycare without being forced. We have offered him several good bribes, and no luck. I think it is time to try a new strategy.

I had been dreading potty training since before Josh was born. And I can say it was nothing like I expected. For us, all of the challenges so far have been emotional. I expected some manipulating and stalling, but not the level of fear and controlling the situation. Hopefully in a few weeks we will be done, but we'll see!

Playing!

One of our first outings with underwear, failed trip to the library...

Off to Home Depot!

Christmas in Florida

This year for Christmas we went to Florida to spend time with Margaret's family.  Our trip got off to a rough start as our flight was delayed 4 hours.  We were flying with Margaret's sister and her cousin so we had plenty of people to hang out with.  Josh ran around a lot but Margaret's cousin's daughter thankfully kept track of him and overall the wait wasn't that bad.  Both boys napped (at least a bit) on the flight which was nice.

Margaret's parents have been renting a house in Siesta Key and we rented a house just off the key.  The house was very nice and we decided to have both boys sleep in the same room.  Since  we tried this previously at home we thought it could work.  Overall it went very well and both boys were well behaved.  Sam has been waking up earlier than normal (around 5am - one time at 4am) so I had to run in and grab Sam before Josh would wake up.  Sam was willing to go back to sleep after eating so we did get to sleep more although then Josh would soon wake up so we had to then balance not waking Sam.  Sharing the room worked although it was a bit stressful.

Our house was about half a mile from the beach so we went there a few times.  We can now definitely say both boys are beach bums.  At six months Josh had no interest in the beach but Sam at eight months loves it.  He loved crawling on the beach and seemed to enjoy eating the sand (good thing I asked the pediatrician about that!).  Josh still had little interest in the water although he did get his feet wet.  Josh mostly enjoyed destroying sand castles I would build and running around.

The house we rented had a pool which gave us a chance for Josh to get in some swimming.  We didn't get many swimming opportunities this past summer so we wanted to be sure Josh wasn't scared of the water.  After a little bit of cautiousness at the beginning he was jumping in on his own and swimming on his own (with the help of some water wings).  Sam enjoyed being in the water as well--he loves splashing.

We spent Christmas at the house and all the kids seemed to have a good time with their new toys. Everyone brought their own stockings, so we just did small gifts. Josh did NOT want Santa to come to our house which simplified things. Margaret got me a small drone which I enjoyed playing with (I checked, it doesn't have to be registered). Margaret's dad cooked a turkey, and we ordered some side dishes for dinner. Margaret went to the grocery store unsupervised and bought all the desserts they had, so we had a good variety of those as well. Margaret's parents brought over a little christmas tree, which all the kids loved. She was worried before the trip that it wouldn't feel like christmas being away, but it ended up being really nice. Josh even enjoyed the family tradition of watching the Dinosaurs Fridge Day episode.

On our second to last day we went to Busch Gardens.  We went there last year with Josh and he really enjoyed it.  This year it was more crowded and harder to see very much.  Both boys slept most of the way home and when Josh got home he took another nap on the floor.

We got to spend lots of time with Margaret's sister's family and Margaret's parents.  My dad now has a condo in Florida so we got to spend a bit of time with him as well which was nice.  It was nice to get out of town for a week although traveling with young children is always a challenge.  Overall the boys were very well behaved and both of them loved being outside.

The flight home was a bit rough - I think everyone was just ready to be home. Sam would not sit still and Josh refused to nap.

Getting some work done while waiting for the flight

Happy to be in Florida

Cousins on Christmas Eve

Family beach selfie

Enjoying the pool

Driving at Busch Gardens

Beach bums!

little guy loved the water!

<3 this little beach bum

loving the pool

Fish in water

Happy Birthday Josh!

Happy Birthday to Josh!! His checkup isn't for a few weeks, so we won't know his stats. But he seems to be growing pretty well!

Over the past year Josh has grown up into a curious, smart, kind and awesome little boy. He loves to help us in the kitchen, cleaning, bring things to the car, or with Sam whenever he can. He loves monkeys, reading and playing with legos or cars and trucks. He has recently started pretend play and is getting very imaginative. He loves loves, loves playing outside, and doesn't really care if it is hot or cold.

More recently his thought process has gotten much more complex. He loves to make deals, or negotiate and he has gotten very clever. He is a sponge and picks up on everything.  His speech has really improved in the last month or so as well.  He consistently talks in complete sentences and his vocabulary has greatly increased.  He is also getting better at pronouncing words than he used to be.  Gone are the days of cortiyone (cortisone), yamby (laundry), galage (garage) and other Joshisms we got used to.

Physically he is doing really well. He loves running, and is a great climber. We recently took him swimming a few times and he is doing really well. In the next year we want to get him a bit more into some organized athletics--swimming lessons and maybe soccer. But we need to be on top of signing him up before they book up.

Along with the increased thought processing, he throws some pretty typically 3-year-old tantrums. We used to be able to easily distract him, but it is getting a bit more challenging now. He has also discovered that he is afraid of some things, also pretty typical behavior. We can already tell these will be some of our biggest challenges this year.

Potty training has been a slow process. He is physically and mentally ready, but not emotionally. We are letting him go at his own pace for now, and hoping he decides that he doesn't want to wear diapers anymore at some point.

We have begun the search for a new pre-school for him. Any recommendations near the Kensington/Rockville area are welcome! The one we liked best is not nut free, and that is a deal breaker for us right now.

Is 3 too young for a drivers license?

Just doing some cleaning

Playing with his toys

Listening to a birthday message from Aunt Heather

Asthma

Sorry for the lack of posts on the blog - we'll try to be better.

In early November Josh got sick on a weekend.  One of his typical colds - cough, runny nose and a fever.  By Sunday night however his breathing got very shallow and he wouldn't stay asleep.  Margaret and I decided we needed to take him to the hospital.  A friends mother was in town and she came over to watch Sam (who was already asleep) and we went for our fourth round at the hospital.  Josh was given oxygen and some medicine (same as last year with RSV) and got another XRay (I have lot's of images of him now!).  They said he had a respiratory virus and prescribed steroids for a few days.

He stayed home on Monday from daycare and seemed to be doing better.  Tuesday was Sam's six month appointment and the pediatrician wanted to see Josh as well for a follow up.  After talking with the pediatrician, and listening to Josh's breathing, she diagnosed that Josh has asthma and as a result he is more susceptible to have this sort of issues when he gets sick.  She prescribed a lower dose steroid which we should give him daily through the nebulizer.  We were a bit upset about this diagnosis although not entirely shocked.  With Josh's allergies and how often he gets sick (and my history of asthma) we were partially expecting this at some point.  But to hear it finally was tough to take.

We didn't immediately start the daily medicine (we were still finishing the higher dose steroid) and digesting the news.  The higher dose steroid makes Josh completely crazy and almost impossible to control so the idea of having a daily steroid was not pleasant.  After a few more days we started the daily steroid.  We give it to him in the morning when he wakes up.  He likes getting it because he gets to watch videos on the iPad while he is using the nebulizer.

After a few weeks Josh started to get a cough and a runny nose.  We talked to the pediatrician and they suggested adding Albuterol to his daily medicine to help ward off colds.  So far, that seems to be working.  In the last two months Josh has gotten symptoms of a cold three times and each time we boost his medicine and each time it has not progressed.  He hasn't had a fever and after a few days the cough and runny nose go away.

We are going to talk to his allergist when we see him next about continuing this medicine but so far it does seem to be working.  Unfortunately Josh is prone to getting sick frequently but hopefully these new tools at our disposal will continue to work for us and keep him from having larger issues.  I grew out of my asthma and hopefully Josh will too.

Feeling better at the hospital

Showing Josh his XRay